God Willing, God Willed

As Christians, we often qualify our future plans with a breezy, "God willing." But it's much harder, when our plans don't work out, to say, "God willed." 

I recall theologian R.C. Sproul, while teaching on the sovereignty of God admitting that if knew there was one molecule that was outside of God’s control, he would be terrified. It would mean that God was not God because there was something operating outside of his influence and power. Now, if God were a despot, then the realization that something was outside of his control would be good news. It would mean that there was hope for revolution, a change of regimes! But as God is a loving, wise, just, and merciful father, the knowledge that he is in absolute and total control brings peace. And it should allow us to say, "God willed," as easily as we say, "God willing."

What would it have sounded like to Philemon when Paul suggested that the thievery and flight of his slave, Onesimus, happened as part of some divine plan so that he might be received back by Philemon not as a slave but as a beloved brother? (Cf. Philemon 15-16) His initial evaluation might have been, “NONSENSE!!” But this dance of human will and divine will that Paul alluded to is, in part, what we considered in our church this past Sunday under the term "providence."

Though hard to mentally grasp, we are to know that all of God’s creation is enveloped in his will. All that comes to pass, therefore, is never due to chance, fate, or some other impersonal force. Rather, in the words of the Heidelberg Catechism, God’s ever-present power “rules in such a way that leaves and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and unfruitful years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, and everything else, come to us not by chance but by his fatherly hand” (Question 27). If this is true, then even the sin of Onesimus is encompassed within the over-arching will of God. This does not alleviate the sinner of his responsibility, but it does mean that no matter what transpires, God’s will, which is always good, will be done.

Paul’s soaring language in Romans 8 resonates with confidence in divine providence. I urge you to read it, mediate upon it, pray over it, so that you might affirm with him that nothing “in all creation, will be able to separate [you] from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Gospel Trangression

The late George Wallace, former Governor of Alabama, proclaimed in his January 14, 1963, inaugural speech, “In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” In June of that same year he sought to make good on that declaration when he blocked the entrance to the University of Alabama, seeking to prevent Vivian Malone and James Hood, two black students, from registering at the school. And again, in September of 1963, he sought to prevent black children from attending four different elementary schools. A product of his culture and an adherent to the mores of the then “deep south,” Wallace was acting in accordance with his self-justifying, self-promoting, and self-protecting worldview.

But in 1979, Wallace said of his “Stand at the Schoolhouse Door,” “I was wrong. Those days are over, and they ought to be over.” He had come to faith in Christ and as a result he “apologized to black civil rights leaders for his past actions as a segregationist. He said that while he had once sought power and glory, he realized he needed to seek love and forgiveness” (“George Wallace,” Wikipedia). This is the transgressive power of the gospel. Awakened to his sin of racial and cultural gerrymandering, he crossed the boundaries of race, history, and societal pressure to seek reconciliation.

We need to seriously consider this kind of outworking of Christ’s reconciling death on the cross. The sin that separated us from God has also consistently generated sinful societal boundaries that serve to keep some in power while forcing others to the margins. In the process of reconciling all things to himself, whether on earth or in heaven, Christ calls his disciples to pick up their crosses and follow him as he transgresses those lines to implement his plan for his sin-racked creation. And, as reconciling us to God took the transgressive act of the Son of God leaving the glories of heaven that he might both live and die for us on this earth, we can expect that following our Lord across sinfully constructed boundaries will cost us something. It did for him. But motivated by love and empowered by his Spirit we can prove effective agents of reconciliation in an often cruelly divided world.

"Can we all get along?"

“Can we all get along?” This was the plaint of Rodney King in 1992 in the riot torn city of Los Angeles after violence broke out in the wake of what most perceived to be an unjust verdict that acquitted the officers who were caught on videotape beating him. An already strained relationship between the LA police and the black community reached a breaking point with devastating results: 53 deaths, 2,383 injuries, and over $1,000,000,000 in damages; a terrifying and troubling example of sin’s disruptive power.

The truth is we can’t all get along. Fractures in even the strongest of relationships seem inevitable. Peace between people takes work. Recently at Neighborhood Church, we considered two of the resources the gospel provides in that effort:  unity and forgiveness. By unity is meant our commonality as human beings. We are all made in the image of God. This means that we are not free to regard others in a manner any different than how we would want to be regarded. We are all made in the image of God, yet we have all fallen short of the glory of God. We are all in need, therefore, of the redemptive and reconciling work of Christ. That’s true whether you are the slave owner, Philemon, or the slave, Onesimus (we’ve been looking at Paul’s letter to Philemon on Sundays). For those in Christ, our commonality is deepened for we all have him as our head and all drink from the symbolic one cup. Embracing our commonality goes a long way in undermining presumed superiority while instilling humility, two important ingredients for removing enmity between people.

The necessity and ability to forgive flows from the fact that through the reconciling work of Christ we have been “delivered . . . from the domain of darkness and transferred . . . to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14). The expectation is that as the Lord has forgiven us, we will also forgive; as we know the blessing of being forgiven, out of love we must grant it to others (Colossians 3:13). The contrast of reactions between the father and the older brother in the familiar parable of the prodigal son reveals the kind of heart Jesus wants us to have: ready to forgive when repentance is proffered.

I suspect each of us can think of a person who presents a challenge along these lines. We should make that one a project: praying for him or her to come to an understanding of how he or she has offended, while at the same time asking God for a heart that is desirous to lovingly pronounce forgiveness when the Lord answers our prayers for the other.

The Great Reconciliation

In his opening words to the Colossians, Paul offers some of the most exalted language regarding Jesus in the New Testament. He attaches activity and characteristics that are reserved for God alone, including bringing everything into existence: “For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him” (1:16). He then presents Christ’s work upon the cross as an act of reconciliation. Christ, in whom “all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell,” acted “to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross” (1:19-20).

Scripture teaches that man’s failure and the subsequent injection of sin and death into that which Christ made is the cause of the disharmony that exists between humans, humans and animals, humans and creation. “To reconcile all things,” therefore, suggests that Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is meant to address the effects of sin not only in the lives of human beings, but in the rest of creation as well. This finds support when Paul states elsewhere that “the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God” for then “the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay” (Romans 8:19, 21).

This broadens the responsibility of the Christian. With Christ as our head (Colossians 1:18), we should expect to be used as his agents of reconciliation “far as the curse is found,” to use the words of Isaac Watts. Preaching faith and repentance, alleviating suffering, addressing injustice, or restoring broken relationships, are reconciling activities made possible through the power of Christ at work in his church. This is our labor until the day when all will be reconciled and we stand before him in the New Heavens and New Earth.

The Call of Christmas

From a blog post of Dr. Jennifer Myhre, of World Harvest Mission, serving in Kenya:

“Having spent 17 of the last 20 Christmases in Africa, the wind which blows in a drier hotter season now feels familiar, and the flashing spastic lights we bought in our capital a couple years back (our first electrified season) feel appropriately chaotic. Last year was our first in Kijabe (Kenya), and I remember the church Christmas pageant which included a band of skinny little camouflage-clad Kenyan boys as Herod’s soldiers marching in like a rebel resistance army, and Jesus’ parents fleeing before them like any other refugees. I don’t recall much focus on this part of the story in America as I grew up.  Our plays ended half-way through Matthew 2, with the gifts of the magi, while the scene was still serenely beautiful and triumphant.  

“The slaughter of innocent children gives the story a jarring, uncomfortable ending, dangling, unresolved, and terrible.  Rachel weeping for her children, because they are no more . . .

“We should not have dropped this part of the Christmas story all these years, because slaughter is the context of Christmas.  The whole story hinges on the presence of rampant evil. When masses of children are violently killed, it becomes hard to deny the reality of injustice and suffering, the horrible brokenness of our world . . .

“On this continent, it would be absurd to deny the horror and heartache of evil, just as absurd as it would be to do so in Newtown [CT], or in Bethlehem, when the bloodied bodies of baby boys were being buried.”

Matthew’s inclusion of Herod’s atrocity in his Christmas account, powerfully signals that God is not removed from our human condition. He understands that, as Paul states, “. . . the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God . . [for in that day] the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.” After all, it is He who, in Revelation 21, puts before us the vision of an existence, an earth, a new earth, in which there is no more death, sorrow, and, therefore, no more mourning.

So, as Dr. Myhre acknowledges:

“Evil is real. Innocents suffer. But the story does not end there . . .

“The birth of the child, who is God, ushers in a turning point in the story. A foe capable of meeting evil, and defeating it, disguised and humbled in human flesh. The incarnation sets in motion a complete reversal of all that is wrong, all that is sorrowful, all that is painful, and in the course of this battle, a lot of people die. The baby survives and becomes the man who will refuse to ride against Roman powers as a King. That is a victory too small, a territory too temporary.  This King will choose a path of suffering, voluntarily taking on all that evil could throw at him, in his own body, nailed to a tree -- like the teachers at Sandy Hook who put their bodies in the path of bullets, trying to protect the children. This King will defeat evil. He will walk out of a tomb so that every 6 and 7-year-old gunned down, every starving baby, and even the Adam Lanzas of the world, can be redeemed.”

We who are followers of Jesus, while we look forward to that day in glory with him when mourning will be no more, must not ignore the path he trod to get there. His mission was a mission lived out in the real world, to overcome the evil let loose upon the real world. From first breath to last, Jesus bore the burden of sin and its evil evidences. Sin caused him to be greeted by the sound of weeping as he came into the world; he confronted its malevolence as he walked about the highways and byways; he succumbed to its power as he yielded up his life on the cross. He did not, however, overcome evil so that we would not have to confront it. He confronted evil so that we might join him in overcoming it. The call of Christmas is to pick up the cross and follow him.

This requires us to be more than passive, secret followers. Jesus did what he did in plain view, and those who had eyes to see, saw, and were overwhelmed by his love and sacrifice. While our work will not redeem anyone in any eternal sense, it will serve to expose others to Jesus and, with his help, push back against the effects of evil in the world. Dr. Myhre: “. . . it is not so much the power of armies that keeps evil at bay, but the ordinary acts of courage and kindness that preserve our world: the community outpouring of love which will heal hearts in Newtown; the tenacious pushing of a teenage girl who gave birth to a baby; and the steady painful walk he took towards death; the daily self-sacrifice of his followers who sweep streets, and teach children, and suture wounds, and defend the fatherless.” Such actions on the part of his followers celebrate the coming of the Christ, who came not to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many.

Adoration of the Magi

The news created a stir. Visitors from the east, magi, men who spent their days discerning the times, had arrived in Jerusalem claiming they had seen a sign. A star appeared in the sky that indicated the promised king of the Jews had been born. Apparently, this was good news to them as it provoked them to travel a long way provided with gifts to express their adoration. Perhaps through their studies they learned that the one they now sought would bring peace and blessing that would be for all peoples, including gentiles like them. That such a one may have actually been born was a matter for great rejoicing.

Not everyone was of the same mind, however. For Herod the “king,” the news posed a threat. The notion that one had arrived that the Jews would laud as the Messiah, the true king, would only spell trouble for his already troubled rule. Then the scribes and priests, who at first displayed alarm, appear to have constructed an explanation for the strange phenomenon that allowed them to go about their business with indifference, despite their knowledge of the Scriptures that foretold of the coming one. Only the “wise” men were provoked to awe and joy at the advent of the Christ.

Such disparate responses to the person of Jesus persist. There are those who, like Herod, respond with virulent hostility. Others, despite the wealth of information available to them, appear unmoved by Christ even though his presence and teaching altered the landscape of human history. Thankfully, there are those who understand the significance of the one born to the virgin and respond with joyful worship. May we all be numbered among them.

What's in a Name?

What’s in a name? Most names have a meaning. How about yours? My name, Kirk, means church. It’s pretty ironic that I ended up working in a church for the past 25 years. Sometimes destinies are bound up in names, at least that seems to be the case biblically. It's certainly so for the one whose birth we anticipate during the Advent season.

In Matthew’s account (1:18-23), we learn that the baby who is to be born to Mary is to be named Jesus, the meaning of which is “God saves.” The name will have particular significance for the child, as he will “save his people from their sins.”  But Matthew also sees in the birth of the child the fulfillment of a word given by God through the prophet Isaiah that the child born of a virgin is to be named Emmanuel, which means “God with us” (Isaiah 7:14).

What’s in a name? In this case, the identity of the perfectly suited mediator between a holy God and sinful human beings. We needed a thoroughly righteous man to accomplish what we could not do -- live a sinless life -- and so be our champion, who at the same time was powerful enough to bear the eternal wrath of God. Only the heavenly named redeemer would do.

God knew that we could not save ourselves. If we were going to be rescued he would have to do it. And wonder of wonders, our savior is a baby, sent from heaven to be for us Jesus, Emmanuel. Advent is intended to be a time when we reflect upon the circumstances that prompted the loving and gracious act of God sending his Son. May our hearts be humbled and filled with gratitude.